Champagne Slips
by Yessi
Summary: Fluff: Ryan. Champagne. The Cohens. A cab.


**Title ** - Champagne Slips  
**Beta **- beachtree - Thanks a bunch!  
**Disclaimer **- I really don't own any of it.

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"No, I don't want to go yet. It's not that late. I promised Taylor another dance! I wanna dance with Taylor! I want ..."

Ryan's annoyed and slightly whiny voice carried through the whole Yacht Club, where the yearly post-Christmas/pre-New Year's party was held.

Several heads turned towards the noise and they could see Sandy by Ryan's side, holding the boy firmly by the elbow and steering him towards the door. Kirsten was heading for the buffet, where Seth was standing.

"Seth! Your dad and I are taking Ryan home now. Here are the car keys; we'll catch a cab – well, as long as we can somehow get him into one..." Seth looked at her confused and craned his head to get a view of Ryan, who was more or less being pushed through the doors by Sandy now.

"What? It's barely ten – and what the hell is wrong with him anyway? Did I just hear him admit in public that he wants Taylor? Wait – is he drunk or what? He had like one glass of champagne!" Seth rambled.

"He drank? Oh. And don't say hell, Seth," Kirsten replied absently, her eyes at the doors, frowning thoughtfully.

"Mom, it was one glass. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but the guy can take more than that. And Dad told me it would be okay if we had one since we're adults and this isn't really a public event and all. I didn't really listen... So. Ryan's really drunk, huh? Sounds like fun!"

"No, it certainly doesn't, Seth," Kirsten stated sternly, her browns still furrowed. "It's no fun at all. Maybe... he was just released from the hospital two days ago. He's still taking those light pain meds after all. The doctor said there shouldn't be further problems since it wasn't a real coma, and that we didn't have to take any precautions regarding other than the obvious as precautions regarding other than the obvious such as watching for dizziness, confusion, excessive pain and nausea. He didn't say anything about alcohol. And there wasn't anything concerning this on the prescription bottle either - just a warning that he shouldn't take them while pregnant."

Seth snorted, still amused despite his mother being seriously worried now. "Yeah, well, that he's not. But now we know how to knock out our tough guy from Chino: with the hellacious combination of a glass of champagne and some very light drugs that couldn't harm a fly... Awesome. We should keep this a secret though, this is so not good for his reputation."

Upon Kirsten glaring at him again, he decided that it was definitely smarter to just shut up.

"Right. Not funny. Yes mother, don't you worry, we'll come home soon. I'll get Summer to drive, since she didn't even have that one glass of champagne. And I hope Ryan is fine...," he finished with a more sincere tone, since the thought had crossed his mind, that maybe, just maybe his mother was right and coma, drugs and alcohol weren't the best combination for his brother.

"Bye, Seth." Kirsten said, kissing his cheek before she turned around to hurry towards the exit, trying to ignore the various Newpsies that were shooting her curious glances.

Outside in the parking lot, Kirsten could see her husband standing next to a cab, discussing arrangements with an accommodating stranger, who was insisting, "No, really, it's no problem. Your place is on the way to my hotel. And the boy clearly shouldn't be waiting for a cab much longer – I guess you want him to be home pronto, right?"

"Thanks, we really appreciate this. Ah, there's my wife... Honey, this gentleman has kindly offered to share his cab with us. Ryan, let's go –", Sandy turned his head, but Ryan had moved away from them to stand next at the wall, not paying attention to them at all, but craning his head to overlook the parking lot.

"I'll get him", Kirsten offered.

"Kirsten! Hey!", Ryan exclaimed happily when she approached.

"Hey, sweetie." Kirsten couldn't help but smile at his obvious pleasure to see her.

"Ready to go home? Sandy has organized a cab for us..."

"No, I, Taylor and – she's, I mean, Taylor... where is she? She wanted to...", he frowned.

"Kaitlin wasn't feeling well. Taylor's taking her home, Julie said. Didn't she tell you?"

"Maybe. Dunno. Huh", he shrugged.

"Are you alright, honey? Headache, dizziness? Anything?"

"No. I'm fine. I might be a tiny little bit drunk though. Tiny." He demonstrated the amount with his fingers, blushing, embarrassed. "Sorry." He added after a moment.

"It's okay, it's not your fault, I guess. Now let us take you home, okay?"

Ryan wrinkled his nose, blinked a few times and in the end agreed: "Kay. Kay. Fine. With my Jeep?"

Kirsten gently took him by the arm to lead him towards the waiting cab. "No. Not with the Jeep."

She couldn't suppress a giggle. Maybe Seth wasn't so wrong. Drunk Ryan seemed to have quite some comedic talent. And apart from his intoxication, or whatever could best describe his unsteady state from the combination of champagne and meds, he seemed to be doing okay.

"The Jeep is at home. With a cab. See, over there. Come on."

Without the supporting wall at his back, Ryan clearly had some problems keeping his balance and he stumbled against Kirsten repeatedly.

"Ah. Sorry. Sorry for that. You 'kay? " he muttered as earnestly as he could muster.

"I'm okay. Come on, careful, there are just a few more steps." Kirsten was relieved that he sounded a bit more sober, but was glad to see Sandy heading towards them now. He grabbed Ryan's other arm and together they managed to get him into the waiting cab. The other man had already gotten in the front passenger seat and the three of them climbed in the back.

Ryan wound up in the middle and tried to make himself comfortable noisily, edging back and forth on his seat, clumsily trying to fasten his seat belt.

Finally, Sandy fastened it for him, wondering when he had to do that the last time for Seth. It must have been many years ago.

He certainly never had to do it for Ryan, though sometimes he wished he could have. Both he and Kirsten had discussed many times how much they both wished they would have had the opportunity to have known Ryan when he was younger, when he was more dependent on adults, more in the need of someone taking care of him- and how much they would have liked to have been those special someones.

Not that Sandy appreciated Ryan being drunk, he didn't. Like Kirsten, he had come to the conclusion that it must have been the combination of the meds and alcohol and had angrily toyed with the idea of taking legal action against the pharmaceutical company. Or the pharmacy. Or the doctor. Or well, basically anybody who he could blame for failing to provide such crucial information about a potential interaction. But a drunk Ryan gave him a glimpse into how a younger Ryan could have been.

He assumed Kirsten had similar thoughts when he watched her straighten first Ryan's seat belt and then his rumpled suit.

The man in the passenger seat was silent during the ride, just glancing at the Cohens through the rearview mirror a couple of times, but the cab driver seemed rather amused by the commotion in the back. He turned around briefly, asking Ryan with twinkling eyes, "Hey, buddy, what's up? You had one too many?"

"Man, I totally only had one. I swear. Champagne. One glass." Ryan answered, leaning forward and resting an arm on the front seat's back. Chuckling lazily, he continued, "Good stuff, I guess."

"I'd say so. Good luck with that story kid..."

"No, it's true! I swear!" Ryan scratched his head in confusion and Sandy, who was listening amused, thought once more that this must be how the younger Ryan had looked and talked, the Ryan that he never had a chance of getting to know.

But Ryan wasn't finished yet, obviously very eager to convince the driver of his story. "Look, I fell of the roof last week, because Taylor... Taylor, because Taylor, she gave me this grill thing, but I didn't want it and then the ladder fell, you know? Stupid reindeer. And then we were in the hospital and in a bogus coma and had the weirdest dreams, okay? And now I still have to take those stupid pills for my head, but it was just a bogus coma. Really. Not a real one. So no harm was done. Nobody told me, but I really think –" he was whispering now, "I really think these pills are very, very weird with the champagne. Got it?"

The driver laughed out loud: "Alright, kid, got it. It all makes perfectly sense now..."

Sandy could hear Kirsten sighing silently, and he himself felt a bit dizzy after Ryan's attempt of an explanation. He was surprised that – despite his condition – Ryan had apparently managed to analyse his drunkenness and link the champagne to the meds. Just another proof of how smart the kid was.

Ryan slid back in the seat again, shaking his head and snickered,"Bogus coma...". He crossed his arms and threw a long look at Sandy on his right, then one at Kirsten on his left, grinning slyly before leaning forwards towards the driver's seat again.

Sandy had grinned back at Ryan, wondering what more he would have in store now. He felt Kirsten glare at him disapprovingly. Obviously, he was enjoying this drunk version of Ryan entirely too much for her taste.

Before she could say anything, Ryan started talking to the driver. Throwing a backwards glance towards Kirsten, he leaned towards the man a bit closer, as if to share a secret.

"You know what?" Ryan stage whispered urgently, apparently convinced that neither Kirsten nor Sandy could hear him.

"I'm sure that Kirsten and Sandy will be so pissed tomorrow. So pissed! Even if it was only one glass. Pissed, I tell you!" Kirsten coughed, Sandy just laughed out loud.

So Ryan didn't put it past them to see that it was the meds' and not his fault? Interesting. The kid would have a nice surprise tomorrow to find out that they weren't 'pissed', but just worried. And also slightly amused. And a little pissed at the drug company or whoever might have dropped the ball.

The driver seemed to enjoy his little conversation, too. Probably Ryan was still the best behaved drunk he ever had to bring home...

"Who's Kirsten and Sandy?" he stage whispered back. "Your girlfriends?"

"EWWW!" Ryan exclaimed disgustedly, and Sandy had to concentrate all his efforts just to keep himself from having a laughing fit like a twelve-year-old. He succeeded, barely, and once he had regained his self-control, he could hear Ryan answering,

"That's just gross! What are you thinking? Kirsten and Sandy are my parents, man! Sandy's a guy! Taylor's my girlfriend – I think. And I tell you, she's hot. She's a bit weird sometimes, but man, she's hot..."

Sandy, who had utterly been enjoying this light-hearted Ryan and listening to his chatter, suddenly didn't bother to pay further attention to the conversation. His head had snapped up at the word 'parents'.

He had never heard Ryan refer to them as his parents. It was usually 'The Cohens' or 'Seths' parents'. Sandy had always wished that the boy might inwardly regard them as his parents, even though he knew Ryan would never admit that in public.

He also knew that even this was very wishful thinking. He realized that it was possible that Ryan still regarded them as his best friend's parents, or as his lawyer and and his lawyer's wife who then became his guardians. Maybe he thought of them as do-gooders who salved their consciences by providing him with a home. Maybe he considered them to be temporary caretakers. Maybe, to Ryan, to whom parents had such a painful connotation, they were some indefinable combination of all of that.

He had the impression that Ryan was more secure with his place in the Cohen family since he moved back, that he had accepted that they were all in for the long haul. That they weren't going to ever let him go. Maybe that was just wishful thinking, too...

But hearing him saying it out loud, without hesitation, probably without even thinking about it, just as some random information for a stranger while all he wanted to talk about was his girlfriend, made Sandy feel all light-headed and warm with joy.

Smiling broadly, he glanced over at Kirsten and could see, that she, too, had heard it and was smiling back at him teary-eyed.

"Children and drunks...", he murmured.

"Yeah", she replied softly, only for Sandy to hear. "He is definitely our child."

"And definitely drunk," Sandy added, trying to lighten the mood and being rewarded with Kirsten rolling her eyes at him.

Ryan had apparently finished his tales of Taylor and leaned back sluggishly, slumping in the seat between Kirsten and Sandy. He yawned and he quietly asked with a young and tired voice: "How much longer until we're home?"

Sandy patted him on the back while Kirsten rubbed their son's arm and smiled tenderly when she told him, "Soon, sweetie. We'll be home soon." Both of them kept their hands there, feeling the need to somehow let Ryan feel their happiness, even though he probably wouldn't remember anything in the morning.

During the last few minutes of their ride, the cab was filled with silence and Sandy was sure that both he and Kirsten would treasure this evening forever.

The night wasn't memorable because they were taking one of their kids home drunk from a Newpsie party, but because that ride home had given them a little glimpse into Ryan's true feelings about them. And they'd never forget the joy this filled them with.

Sandy knew the chances were small that he would ever hear Ryan say it out loud again, but that was okay. It only made this moment more precious.

In the meantime, the man in the passenger seat was clenching and un-clenching his fists, barely able to surpress his anger. He, too, had listened to Ryan's conversation with the driver, and had paid particular attention to the part about Ryan calling the Cohens his parents.

The man had just arrived in Newport the other day, right after he had found out where Ryan lived now. When he had heard that the Cohens, and probably also Ryan, would attend that party, he had gotten his best suit and gone to the Yacht Club. Once he had located Ryan, he had spend the better part of the evening watching him from afar, trying to figure out who, of all those fancy people, the Cohens were.

That deduction had turned out to be pretty simple to make, since the kid got drunk and the Cohens were eager to bring him back to their house. He had acted quickly, pretending that he had called for the cab that was waiting outside. It was a bit of a risk, since he didn't want to be recognized yet, but luckily the Cohens were busy taking care of Ryan and Ryan didn't pay attention to him at all.

Now he needed to get in contact with someone who could provide him with more information about that family, so that he would be ready to face the Cohens - and Ryan, to make one thing clear to all of them: Ryan was _his_ son and nobody else would have him. Nobody messes with Frank Atwood.


End file.
